David Roberts (climber)


David Roberts is a climber, mountaineer, and author of books and articles about climbing. He is particularly noted for his books The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative, chronicling major ascents in Alaska in the 1960s, which had a major impact on the form of mountaineering literature.

Early life and climbing in Alaska

Roberts is the son of astronomer and scientist Walter Orr Roberts. David Roberts attended Harvard University, where he received a mathematics degree in 1965. He was a member of and former president of the Harvard Mountaineering Club where he led exploratory first ascents of many peaks in Alaska. He also received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver in 1970. In thirteen seasons spent in the Alaskan wilderness, Roberts is well known for many first ascents, including the Wickersham Wall on Mount McKinley, the West rib of Mount Huntington, climbing in the Western Brooks Range and the Kichatna Spires, and on the East Face of Mount Dickey. Roberts also named Alaska's Revelation Mountains, giving many of the peaks Biblical names because he had been reading the Bible as part of his English literature studies at the time.

Career

From 1970 to 1979 Roberts was a professor of literature at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, as well as designing the college's Outdoors Program.
He is often acknowledged as the "dean" of American climbing literature and has published extensively on mountaineering.

Personal life

He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Co-authored books